COLUMN: Downtown shooting touch is Heels' frienemy

Saturday

Mar 23, 2013 at 12:01 AMMar 23, 2013 at 12:15 AM

KANSAS CITY – North Carolina, with its four-guard lineup, has become one of those teams that lives and dies by the 3-pointer.

For the first 13 minutes Friday, the eighth-seeded Tar Heels certainly lived by it as they rolled out to an impressive 20-point lead against No. 9 Villanova. Then, almost as suddenly, their season nearly died because of it. And not because they stopped hitting their perimeter jumpers.

UNC saw its once-comfortable margin turn into a stunning deficit midway through the second half because it got away from what it does best and stopped shooting them. It took an unexpected lineup change and some cool under pressure from gunners P.J. Hairston, Reggie Bullock and Marcus Paige, but the Tar Heels managed to get the job done – holding off the Wildcats of the Big East 78-71 to advance into a presumed matchup with top-seeded Kansas on Sunday.

The win extended coach Roy Williams’ record of never having lost an opening-round NCAA tournament game.

Victory No. 23 in the streak, however, didn’t come as easily as it originally seemed it might. The Tar Heels (25-10) made eight straight field goals at one point early in the game, including four 3-pointers to roll out to a 32-12 with seven minutes left in the half. This shouldn’t have come as a surprise, considering that Villanova came into the game ranked 293rd nationally in 3-point field goal defense.

But then, inexplicably, UNC stopped taking advantage of its greatest strength and its opponent’s biggest weakness.

Maybe it’s because the Tar Heels still haven’t become completely indoctrinated to the style necessary to make their new four-guard lineup work. Old habits are hard to break, after all. Whatever the reason, UNC attempted only four 3-pointers over a 16-minute stretch wrapped around both halves, missing them all.

Not coincidentally, the Wildcats (24-11) rallied to take a 44-42 lead with 14˝ minutes to go.

“We shots some crazy shots, we rushed some shots and we turned the ball over, at the same time Villanova was getting tip-ins and easy baskets,” Hairston, who led all scorers with 23 points, said afterward. “At the same time, we still played with poise. We didn’t let it get to us.”

It sure didn’t look like it when Williams pulled a tried-and-true motivational tactic out of his bag of tricks by taking all five starters out of the game to send a message.

Surprisingly, though, the message wasn’t entirely punitive.

“It was a little bit of a game-plan change,” Paige said. “He wanted us to start doubling down on (Villanova’s 6-foot-7 forward JayVaughn) Pinkston, because he was killing us on low block. But then the second part of that conversation was that it’s gut-check time.”

Just as they did during the second half of the ACC schedule, after Williams scrapped everything he holds near-and-dear and completely changed the way his team plays, the Tar Heels rose to the occasion.

Surprisingly, it was the insertion of former walkon Jackson Simmons that helped turn the game back into UNC’s favor. Though Simmons contributed just one field goal and three rebounds in his 11 minutes of action, his screens helped spring Hairston and Bullock open for three consecutive 3-pointers during a 67-second stretch to give the Tar Heels the separation they needed to live to play another day.

UNC went 11 of 21 from 3-point range for a sizzling 52.4 percent to help offset a 37-28 deficit on the boards. The trio of Hairston, Bullock (15 points) and Paige (14) combined to make 10 of those long-range

“They came back from all the way down 20. That’s just March Madness basketball for you,” Paige said. “But we have guys that are confident, no matter what. P.J. has no conscience when it comes to threes. All three of us shooters live in the moment and just try to knock down the shots.”

As long as they keep making them the way they have been lately, the Tar Heels have at least a shooter’s chance to keep advancing in this tournament.

ACC Insider Brett Friedlander can be reached at starnewsacc@gmail.com.

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